Morgan Abrams
36 days until arrest
The apartment is the gentle quiet of ambient machinery and humming ventilation when you return home, lights flickering on as you move out of the entrance and into the kitchen. A pair of empty Nutripaste tubes on the table is the only sign that Rivka must have been home at some point after you left this morning.
Riley’s parents had offered to walk you home – she hadn’t told them the full story, you didn’t have the guts to do so either – but you turned them down. Made up a story that Rivka was coming to get you and while Riley didn’t buy it for a second, there wasn’t much she could do about it but give you a worried glare.
A dull throbbing ache like a visegrip around the sides of your head has settled in for the long haul while your tips of your fingers and toes tingle as if fallen asleep. Starting to get cold too. You find the control panel on the wall in the kitchen and tap the temperature up a few degrees. A second later the hiss of air through the vents starts up.
You hung around at the Urgent Care just long enough to finish covering your tracks in the security system. No more threat of being fined for breaking lockdown, videos edited just enough to not contradict any official reports. It’s not a perfect job, sure, but you can’t think about that. If the attack today finally brings enough scrutiny to make a difference, then it won’t matter how well you hide things.
You doubt it will be that bad though. Already on the newsfeeds they’ve got people working overtime to downplay or minimize things. A freak accident – an unfortunate tragedy. Despite Brayden’s hysterics there hasn’t been a single suggestion of it being a terrorist attack. The three of you (and Security) might be the only ones with any clear idea of what actually happened.
Careful to minimize contact with your fingers, you pick the trash up off the table and put it in the garbage can under the sink where it belongs. A quick check of the fridge reveals half a pack of bottled water and week old take-out rice from the Golden Palace place two floors down. You take mercy on the box and put the rice out of it’s misery too, adding it to the trash. Still plenty of Nutripaste if you’re desperate. But the texture…
You wrestle out one of the water bottles and put it on the kitchen counter. Duck into your bedroom quick enough to go through the meds and count out the pills. It takes a few tries to get it right. The full evening set, plus something for the migraine. Pop them all into your mouth and return to the kitchen to wash it down with water.
You sit at the kitchen table for a while. Not really counting the time. Not really thinking. The static’s too muffled in here to properly wash over you. Too muffled to pick out even if your head wasn’t feeling full of dull-edged razor blades. Forced to just sit with yourself. Sore muscles like after a workout. Fingertips still tingling, a slight ringing like tinnitus at the edge of hearing. Garbled snatches of some distant conversation.
Another glance at your phone. Still no messages from anyone, no alerts. You send Riley a message that you made it home okay but she doesn’t respond – probably getting the talking to of her life right now. No Super Nova update to distract yourself with, not that you could muster the focus to do much reading in this state.
Pulling out your phone, you thumb through the menus until you reach the right one to talk to A*.
PDA A*
M: is rivka coming home tonight? She never responded to my texts
A*: I’m sorry, Rosalyn. Dr. Abrams is unavailable at this moment.
A*: I’m afraid I don’t have an answer to your question.
M: cool
A*: Did you need anything else?
M: um
M: no that’s okay, i was just wondering
Every time you see that stupid name you set A* to use for you in private it’s like getting an electric jolt. Something you can’t name save for the guilt that always follows close behind. You’ve tried a couple different ones over the years, both with A* and with some of the more pseudo-anonymous online forums but ‘Rosalyn’ has stuck around the longest.
You really should cut it out.
It’s been made perfectly clear what’ll happen if you don’t get over this.
A wave of exhaustion breaks over you as you put the phone down.
Right.
Shit.
Injection.
How did you forget? You were already getting due and now with the vaccine wrecking your system, it feels more important than ever. Supposed to only be doing them under adult supervision now but you were doing fine on your own for years before that.
Where would Rivka be keeping your medical stuff? It’s all in a little black lockbox. You’ve seen it. Not your bedroom. Not in the bathroom. Definitely not here in the kitchen. That leaves Rivka’s office, down the hall at the very end. Office. Bedroom. Same thing. She barely sleeps or works at home as it is.
Okay.
Okay, you can do this. Stand up. One foot in front of the other. Just a quick look. Or not so quick look. A look. Whatever. You find your hand hesitating on the doorknob, the metal cool to the touch. The video of her and Cassandra calls itself to mind as you stand there. Imago and weird boxes and claims of terrorism.
That settles it then, doesn’t it? You need to know.
Fuck it.
The door swings opens without a sound as you step inside. The room is small, smaller than your own bedroom even. A narrow bed, the white sheets left unmade, jammed into the far corner alongside a dresser. The chaotic state of the bed brings a little flame of indignation. A* always give you grief if you don’t make your bed but this is how she keeps hers? Unfair!
The wall to your right has a white wooden desk with nothing on it. The single light source is the one inset into the ceiling. The walls are bare. There’s no posters, or photographs. It’s actually kind of sad? Her work office has more personality.
And that’s it? Not even a window screen? Even you got a window screen in your room. When you were a kid this sort of cartoon level of austerity wouldn’t have surprised you. But you’re seventeen. You know better now. She’s Rivka, but she’s still just a person. An adult human being, not some bot that lives an a closet and fundamentally doesn’t exist when outside of your sight.
Doesn’t she want to look outside at the city now and again?
You stand there for a few seconds longer, not touching anything, merely looking around. When your phone fails to blow up with messages from A* or Rivka admonishing you for entering her room, you decide it’s safe enough to start looking around.
Nothing under the bed. Nor the mattress, at least as far as your hand can reach when you stick it under there. The dresser is a challenge. You don’t want to make it obvious that someone’s gone through her clothes for one and for the other there’s probably underwear in one of the drawers and. Yeah. No thanks. Some knowledge isn’t meant to be had. You gingerly pad around, still not really sure what you’re hoping to find. A hidden flash drive full of files titled MyCrimes.txt?
A check in the closet reveals a series of professional looking suits and coats neatly arranged on hangers. Right there on the floor next to a pair of dress shoes is the lockbox with your med stuff. Awesome. Great. That’s one thing down. You pull it out by the handle and lift it up. Can feel the contents roll around inside, shifting the balance of gravity.
You try the latch and it’s locked.
Of course. So then… where’s the key?
Returning to the closet and crammed in the very back is a single dress. Green with fancy lace fringes along the sleeves. That gives you pause. When has Rivka ever in your life worn a dress? You try to imagine it and it doesn’t fit. It’d be like when Riley was forced to wear dresses to calm her parents down – there was just something deeply wrong about it. No wonder the thing is crammed back here in the dark. But why keep it at all?
You run a hand over the fabric. Soft to the touch. It looks pretty. At least. You know. On its own. In isolation. The two of you are about the same height, it’d probably– Shut up. Stop thinking like that. You yank your hand back and step away, shutting the closet door behind you.
Can’t keep thinking about stuff like that. Can’t keep wanting it.
Swallowing a scream and with no where else left to check, you approach the desk. There’s a series of three cabinets to one side. Start with the bottom drawer – it’s the biggest. It takes a tug to make it pop open and– oh, it’s the memorial candles. The ones she puts out every year. For the– the… it’s not coming to mind right now. For the something, whatever. So this is where she keeps them. Why here and not the kitchen?
There’s three of them, resting in their plastic packaging, one wide and short, two long and thin. All of them featureless white cylinders. Pretty sure the idea is that you’re supposed to decorate them yourself, but Rivka never has.
The middle drawer is apparently where Rivka’s ashtray has gotten to. It sits neatly next to an unopened pack of cigarettes. A little surprising to see these still here. You’d have thought she’d throw them away at this point. It took her years to quit smoking. She’d try for a few months at a time, adding a new succession of cigarette burns to the kitchen table before giving up and getting the ashtray back out. She only finally was able to quit for good around the same time you started high school.
Opening the top draw rewards you with another empty tube of NutriPaste dropped on top of a stack of yellowing paper. Gross. You rifle through the papers – not papers, photographs. Old ones, printed out on some very old printer paper. Shuffling through them reveals a handful of faces you don’t recognize. Mostly women. All smiles and eclectic fashions, like they got dressed by tumbling around inside a dryer.
Rivka doesn’t seem to be present in any of the pictures and there’s nothing to put a label to any of them. No names, no dates.
Are these old friends, maybe co-workers? You’ve no idea. You weren’t even aware that Rivka had friends. Everything else underneath looks normal. A seriously expired passport – some twenty-five years out of date, a bunch of what looks like long forgotten paperwork and – oh, score. There’s the lockbox keys inside an envelope helpfully labeled ‘Lockbox.’
You sit back on the floor, keys in one hand, lockbox at your knee.
Brain locks up like a badly scripted program. Knowing exactly what you need to do next and yet blanking on it anyway.
How long you zone out like that is unclear.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?”
The voice – Rivka’s voice, cold and tired – cuts through you. Startled, you jump to your feet. Or try to, knocking over the lockbox and banging your ankle against the still open drawers.
Rivka stands in the doorway, blocking the only available exit. Her lab scrubs are unbuttoned, a tan colored shirt tucked into canvas pants underneath. Her company ID badge is pinned to the breast pocket of her lab coat.
She closes her eyes with a long suffering sigh. Props her cane against the door frame, leaving her hands free to push her glasses up, massaging of the orbital socket around her cybernetic eye. A cheaply made and decades out-of-date thing that doesn’t quite match with the green iris of her left. She could have a bio-identical one grown as a replacement anytime and she never has.
“Morgan.” Glasses back in place. She snaps her fingers to ensure your attention. “If you’re going to put your hand in the cookie jar–”
“–d-don’t get caught,” you finish.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
When you don’t answer, her frown tightens. She reaches forward, grabs you by the upper arm. Pulls you, stumbling, away and into the bathroom. With a barked “Stand here” she set you aside and starts digging through the cabinet mirror. Bottle after bottle of drugs and medications. The mirror creaks on its hinge and you avert you eyes so that you aren’t confronted with your face.
Standing side by side like this confirms, yes you’re about the same height now. Maybe a fraction shorter? You both have brown hair but hers is steadily turning white, having skipped grey entirely, pulled back into a tight bun.
She mutters to herself in French as she pulls out a pair of bottles and sets them down on the counter one after the other. The performance of it would make you laugh if you were more together right now. After shaking out a pill from each bottle she fills a paper cup with water from the faucet and orders you to take the medication.
You stare at the set up on the counter for a second, trying to catch up.
Rivka frowns, taking your delay as reluctance. “You’re not getting an early injection. The oafs at EmerGen made you get a vaccination shot, yes? Don’t bother lying, I already know everything. Congratulations you idiot child, this is part one of your punishment for violating lockdown: you can’t take another injection until the the vaccine is out of your system.”
Oh.
Right.
You knew that.
“In the meantime, get familiar with these painkillers because I’m not going to have A* ease up on your course load any time soon. You’re still behind.”
You risk a look at her face. Brows furrowed but her complexion is still its normal pale peach. She’s not mad at you yet.
That gets a rude laugh. “We’re just getting started.”
Without any alternative you swallow the pills, glancing at the bottles while Rivka puts them away. You recognize them both: one for pain management, one for brain fog.
Satisfied, Rivka plucks the empty cup from your hand and puts it back on the counter for reuse later. Then she pulls you along by the arm again back towards the kitchen after a quick detour to retrieve her cane. Forces you to sit down in an open chair before she begins pacing the floor. Stomp, click-clack, stomp. Putting her thoughts together or controlling her temper or talking to A* sub-vocally or all three at the same time, you have no idea.
Rivka’s always been a hard one to get a sense of through the static. You have to approach it from a sort of sideways angle, like one of those magic-eye pictures. Direct attention just gets you a crush of feedback.
On the fourth rotation across the kitchen floor she turns to you. “What on earth were you thinking? You. Are. A. Child.” Rivka states each word with a building cold fury as she tightens her grip on her cane. “You are infinitely lucky that you did not get hurt, or worse, get someone else hurt by your flagrant disregard for basic safety procedure. Do you understand me?”
You nod in numb acknowledgement. You didn’t get hurt in the end though. Everything worked out okay. If it wasn’t for you, Brayden might have–
Rivka raps her cane against the floor. “I don’t care about whatever little story you might have come up with to justify this to yourself. What would you have done if you had actually encountered an Imago?”
Oh, she hasn’t seen–
“And to have dragged Miss Parson into this as well? What would you have done if something had happened her?”
The question hits you like a punch.
Rivka steps closer to deliver the follow-up. “What would you have said to her parents?”
You suck in a breath, eyes burning, throat tight. You didn’t ask her to come. This isn’t fair, it’s not your fault. She insisted. You told her to stay.
“It’s not like I haven’t drilled you on what to do during a lockdown. Run, Hide, Barricade. Tell me you at least had a face mask on you.”
Robotically, you nod your head.
“So you’re not completely hopeless. This is not a game, Morgan. Take a risk like this, and you’re responsible for everything that follows after, do you understand me? For the people stupid enough to follow you, for the rescue workers that have to waste resources on you afterward. It’s thoughtless behavior, and worse, it’s selfish. Leave the heroics to trained professionals, to the men and women instructed in how to handle such situations. You do not. Under any circumstance. Put YOURSELF in needless danger!”
She raps her cane against the side of the table hard enough to make you jump in your seat. You can feel the urge to break something itching in her hands. Have to stare down at the floor, shrinking in your seat. That she doesn’t have the full picture in the end is a cold comfort; Rivka is still right about everything else. You were stupid. Monumentally stupid stupid stupid.
Waiting for, no, willing the floor to open up and swallow you.
“For fuck’s sake, Morgan. Do you have anything to say for yourself? Any intention to take responsibility?”
“S-s-sorry–“
“I don’t care if you’re sorry! I need you to not do it again!”
You flinch at the volume.
She scowls and recomposes herself again. “You’re grounded until I say otherwise, understand? No leaving the apartment unless absolutely necessary, and only with the strict permission of either myself or A*. No shows, no games, no texting with friends. I will have A* monitoring you to ensure you focus entirely on catching up with your studies.”
“B-b-but–”
“Shut it. This is not up for debate. Now–” she pauses, takes a deep breath. Hands in, hands out, ”–is there anything else I need to know about today? This is your one chance to come clean.”
You bite the inside of your cheek, blinking the water out of your eyes. Shake your head, eyes still fixed to the floor. Just want to melt straight through. Send you to the center of the earth. Somewhere you can never be seen again.
Rivka snorts with disgust and walks away. Stomps down the hallway towards her room. She returns seconds later and slams one of the memorial candles down on the table. It’s the tall, skinny one. You look from it to her and back to the candle again as she flicks it on. The little yellow-orange electric light flickers.
“Someone died today,” is all she offers in way of explanation.
Oh.
She fixes you in place with her stare. “It could have been you.”
You suck in your lower lip, chewing at the chapped skin. With a heavy sigh, Rivka pulls out the other chair at the table and throws herself in it. Her fingers twitch, craving a cigarette. As she crosses her legs at the knee, one foot bounces up and down in the air. With a complicated hand gesture she brings the window-screen on far wall to life and starts swiping through channels, stopping for a minute or so on every news report before moving on.
You keep still, letting the noise wash over you. Unwilling to make the slightest reminder of your presence lest Rivka say anything else. Just because she’s not paying attention to you right this second doesn’t mean it’s over.
Rivka spends the most time on Arcology News, listening to the anchor report on the damages from the Imago attack. Twelve injured, one confirmed death – the dog’s owner. Can feel the bile twist in your stomach at that. The woman from the video, gone. Nothing left but data in the system.
A clip is played from a press conference held an hour ago by the chief of security where he promises to work with federal law enforcement to determine whether the attack was an accident or not.
Rivka’s scowl deepens and she flicks the channel away with a wave of her hand. “An accident,” she huffs.
Uneasy, you raise your voice. “Y-you um, you d-d-don’t think it was?”
She turns her attention back to you. Debating on what answer to give. “It’s the most likely answer,” she settles on.
“What um, what if it w-w-wasn’t?”
That earns a single raised eyebrow.
You press on, clearly not valuing your life enough to know when to shut up. “My uh– I mean, a-a-a friend said that uh– that um… terrorists could have done it. Like… the Tomorrowists?”
You wince, one eye still open as you try to keep a gauge on Rivka’s reaction.
Her foot stills, expression sour as her mouth twists into a frown. “The Tomorrowists were an organization with specific ideological aims. They didn’t commit random acts of violence against private citizens for the fun of it. There were strict limits on acceptable targets, always with a material goal. Not…” she waves a hand at the screen, “whatever this was.”
You keep chewing on your lip as you nod your head.
That was… an alarmingly precise answer and yet totally in line with asking Rivka anything so… who can say?
“Who told you that nonsense? Miss Parson?”
“Um, no–”
“Someone else?”
“Uh – sort of?” You shrug and go quiet again. Bringing up Brayden means risking having to talk about the Halloween party and what happened in January and no, you can’t do that right now. Thin enough ice as it is.
Mercifully, Rivka decides not to push the issue, leaving the conversation off with a short “don’t believe every fool thing you hear” before turning her attention back to the screen.
Skims through news report after news report on events around the world: protests in Paris turn violent; food riots across Australia; ongoing hurricane relief efforts in the Floridian islands; martial law in effect across Virginia – it keeps going.
Each new five second blast serves to blacken Rivka’s mood further.
“Twenty years on and all we have is this. So much for tomorrow. Worthless fucking country,” she says – not to you, to herself. Turns off the screen and runs a hand over her face, pulling at the skin. Bitter memories and even more bitter feelings as she stares at the candle. At least it means you’re safe from any more scolding tonight. It’s only a matter of time before the alcohol comes out.
Your stomach picks the exact moment you stand up, attempting to escape, to start gurgling.
There’s a moment of silence between the two of you. Your body frozen in place by the criminal betrayal of your own organs.
Rivka stares at your face. You stare at the table. Thinking about food. Yup. Just food. That’s you. A hungry teen. What did Riley’s mom call teenagers? Black holes for stomachs?
“I just ordered more NutriPaste.” Rivka’s voice is flat. Tired. This argument again.
“It’s gross.”
“It’s nutritionally complete and perfectly serviceable.”
“Gross,” you repeat.
Seriously though. It is. How does she stand it? It’s got no texture. Any time you’ve attempted to give it a try the stuff feels like you’re eating toothpaste and your stomach wants to turn itself inside out.
“I swear, Morgan. You have the palette of a child.”
You make a face. You’re not the one that only ever wants to eat featureless grey paste every day of her life.
“I haven’t even eaten anything t-t-today.” Don’t even realize it’s true until after the words are out of your mouth.
This, at least, seems to get through to her. There’s a grimace on her face as she runs her hand through her hair. “You could have messaged A*. It would have arranged something for you.”
Wait, really?
You risk a look at Rivka.
“Mind, I’m not about to have you emptying my account for a pile of junk food. You’ll have a strict spending limit and I’ll have A*–” You cut her off with a hug, forcing her to rock backwards in her chair, holding on to the table to keep her balance.
Radiating discomfort, she stiffly pats your head before forcing the two of you apart. “You’re still grounded.”